Johnny Cash and June Carter. Ike and Tina Turner. As long as there have been bands, there have been band couples. Some are time-tested, others have fallen apart, but few make their relationships the main focus of their music. Enter Jake Rabinbach and Shannon Esper of The Echo Friendly, an on-again-off-again couple and this year’s band to watch.

Listen to their moody pop music—the tension is palpable. Sure, it’s the retelling of their intimate stories, conversations, and letters—often word-for-word—but it speaks to anyone who’s ever gone through romantic troubles. These tunes are personal, emotional, and without metaphor, much like the improvised films that first brought them together.

The pair met in the summer of 2009 while working on the mumblecore film Open Five. For Rabinbach, previously of the band Francis and the Lights, the chemistry with Esper—who was in a relationship at the time—was immediate. “I was just trying and trying to not get crushy,” he says, “and [she was] not helping at all.” After a complicated beginning, the two finally got together, eventually breaking it off.

A year later, Rabinbach asked Esper to sing with him. “I lied,” he says. “I said that I had already written a song for us to sing together.” After Esper agreed, he went home to finish the song “Boats,” based entirely on their relationship. At this point, the two had only sung together once before—and totally “tanked,” Esper adds.

“It was complicated, but I loved the songs,” she says. “I think more than anything, I was just excited about the kinds of songs he was writing. It was really different than what he had been making before.”

What started as a collaboration for the fun of it—and maybe as a way to win a girl back—quickly turned into a project with potential. “At a certain point, I started thinking this is by far the most viable thing I had ever done,” Rabinbach says. “[The song] ‘Same Mistakes’ was so much closer to the music I thought I should be making. I suddenly became very serious.” The song, heavy, sad, and frank, and whose refrain goes, “I haven’t changed a bit / I’m still not over it / I make the same mistakes / I make the same mistakes,” played to closing credits during the first season of HBO’sGirls.

“I just didn’t feel like it was okay to fuck around with metaphors anymore,” Rabinbach says. “I had pretty bad writer’s block for a while and then I was like, ‘What if I just say what happened?’ Like exactly what happened,” getting into Esper’s head as much as his own to write their boy-girl duets.

And just like playing themselves in the films they made when they first met, The Echo Friendly continues to sing their everyday thoughts, experiences, and feelings, regardless of what’s happening in their relationship. “I never really run out of things to say about our interactions,” he says.

“Maybe it’s just growing up on the Internet,” Esper adds. “It’s exciting to just be totally yourself.” —Sasha Levine (@sashalevine)

Echo Friendly’s first full-length album, Love Panic, will come out this summer.

Last week, you may have seen celebrities Ryan Seacrest and Ne-Yo tweet about exclusively playing with Twitter’s#Music app. But with the app’s official release today, Seacrest and Ne-Yo’s tweets are going to the bottom of the pile.

Twitter came out on Good Morning America this morning to unveil its new music app, accessible both online and as an iOS app. Twitter integrated Rdio, Spotify, and iTunes to allow users to listen to full tracks.

Twitter #Music consists of four tabs laid out like grids of clickable artists and songs—just tap and listen. In line with Twitter’s social networking model, a “Popular” tab showcases trendy music circulating Twitter, while an “Emerging” tab highlights up-and-coming talents gleaned from tweets.

But with Twitter’s collective nature comes its personal side. A “Suggested” tab recommends artists based on artists you follow on the service and who they follow, and a “#NowPlaying” tab shares the songs that your friends are tweeting about or listening to.

Now you can tweet to the beat of your favorite tunes. With Facebook’s new Facebook Home for Androids and now Twitter’s new #Music app, social media is clearly making moves.

What’s next?

By Mina Kang

See what to expect at Coachella music festival, and the top 5 new bands according to Billboard’s Tye Comer. Listen to our music playlist of the best SXSW tracks.

Whether you’re suffering from West Coast withdrawals or simply wishing you had made the trip, there’s nothing like a little Coachella 2013 street style to take the edge off. We might hate on how fashionable our favorite music festival has become, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy clicking through the post-party pictures to check out the best (and worst) style moments. (See thebest celeb style here.)

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Our contributing photographer Keenan Reilly was on the ground, backstage, and in the dance tent snapping the best Coachella fashion moments from the first blowout weekend.

Maybe you played it safe in jean shorts or phoned it in with an ironic T-shirt. Now you know your style can’t survive on mirrored sunglasses alone. Scroll through the best of the weekend’s style and get a little inspiration for what to wear to Coachella next weekend or next year.

California’s hotter-than-hot Coachella music fest is almost here, and we couldn’t be more excited to join the sweaty-chic masses. The buzzworthy bash in sunny Indio spans two weekends, April 12-14 and April 19-21, bringing a packed lineup and plenty of food and drink for music lovers.

When Coachella first began in 1999, headliners included Rage Against the Machine, Beck, andMorrissey, drawing a crowd of 10,000 people. Since then, Kanye West has headlined in 2011 and Tupac returned in a mind-blowing hologram performance last year. This year, Blur and theStone Roses co-headline, along with Phoenix and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The fest’s impressive lineup also features big names like Earl Sweatshirt, The XX, Grizzly Bear, James Blake, andPassion Pit. The event’s food scene is just as jumping, with a beer garden opening and a fleet of top food trucks.

Grab your sunblock and get ready for the ultimate musical experience. And if you can’t make it to Coachella this year, YouTube’s live streaming the event. Party on. —Mina Kang

]]>Top 5 New Bands – Billboard’s Tye Comer Picks The Best New Bands At Coachella This Yearhttps://www.frontpsych.com/top-5-new-bands-billboards-tye-comer-picks-the-best-new-bands-at-coachella-this-year/
Wed, 05 Jul 2017 07:30:14 +0000https://www.frontpsych.com/?p=40Billboard’s Tye Comer Picks The Best New Bands At Coachella This Year

The Coachella Music Festival is huge. And it’s only getting bigger. With nearly 180 bands performing in a span of 72 hours this year, it’s hard enough to see all the acts on your list—never mind hitting up the after-parties, food trucks, and other shenanigans. (Luckily, it’s two weekends long.)

So to help strategize your festival experience, we turned to Billboard.com editor Tye Comer to give his picks for the five best up-and-coming bands to watch this year. “I’m one of those people who basically schedules my year around Coachella,” he says.

As the first rock-focused music festival of the year, Coachella sets the tone for the rest of the music festival circuit. “A lot of people have it marked on their calend

EARL SWEATSHIRT“He’s from the Odd Future crew, and a lot of people remember him for being out of the scene for a while [when] he was shipped off to boarding school. But now Earl’s back and he’s been filling up a lot of records and creating a lot of buzz. I think he’s super talented.”

SAVAGES“They are an all-girl post-punk band that comes from the U.K. If you take the best elements of Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, and New Order—and all of those great moody post-punk bands from the ’80s—wrap it up in all-female dough, and then place them in 2013, it’s exactly what they sound like. I imagine they’re going to walk away being one of the bands a lot of people talk about this year.”

RODRIGUEZ“He was a subject of the film Searching for Sugar Man, which won the Oscar for best documentary. He put out two albums in the early ’70s that didn’t really make an impact, then in the late ’90s he made a resurgence. But when the film came out, he got a bit more buzz. He goes from being completely unknown to now filling out huge venues. It’s very folky and it’s got a lot of great lyrics behind him.”

ROBERT DELONG“This is the guy that I’ve had my eye on for a while. I stop short of calling him EDM because he actually is like a one-man live band. It sounds like there’s at least five different people on stage performing. He is a step away from your typical DJ set, and I think the live element of the show is really going to catch a lot of people’s attention. He’s going to walk away a big star this year.”

ars as a place where they want to make a big impact,” Comer says, using it as a launchpad for new projects and new bands. “You’re getting a taste of what’s to come.”

For his inside tips on the next big bands, click through the slideshow for his favorite new acts to watch this year at Coachella 2013. —Sasha Levine (@sashalevine)

For the next two weekends, crowds will bask in the sounds of California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The music fest brings together veteran artists and up-and-coming talents every year—and the whole thing just gets bigger and bigger. This year’s lineup is causing more buzz than usual with headliners like reunited Britpop band Blur, Manchester hit Stone Roses, and legendary rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers. With the rest of the bill featuring beloved bands such as The XX,Wu-Tang Clan, and Passion Pit, we couldn’t be more pumped.

Can’t make it out to Cali for the concerts? We’ve curated the best songs by the hottest bands from Coachella’s 2013 lineup all on one kick-ass Spotify playlist. The best part? You don’t need to leave the comfort of your chair to soak up some hot new music. So click through for the free playlist, give it a listen, enjoy, and get a head start on the Coachella celebration. Rock on. —Mina Kang

Heading to Coachella for the first time this weekend? Read our Coachella Music Fest 2013 guide.

Coachella is only hours away, and we can hardly wait. But with a roster of more than 150 bands, we can’t possibly see each one. To quell your anxieties about who to see among the slew, we consulted the experts to make a list of 10 must-see bands. And who better to consult than our pal DJ Chelsea Leyland? (See our tour of her cool crash pad here).

We asked Leyland who she’s most excited to see this year. Coachella’s headliners Blur, The Stone Roses, and Red Hot Chili Peppers obviously made her list, but her selection of non-headliners offers a musical change of pace. Leyland loves hip-hop and can’t wait to see Wu-Tang Clan and Brooklyn-based rapper Theophilus London. Notable electronic talents such as Grimes,Disclosure, and Jamie XX also made her list. And finally, Leyland includes a bit of rock with English band New Order. Click through the slideshow for her must-see bands at Coachella this year. —Mina Kang

]]>The 9 Best Music Festivals You Didn’t Know Abouthttps://www.frontpsych.com/the-9-best-music-festivals-you-didnt-know-about/
Wed, 05 Jul 2017 05:09:44 +0000https://www.frontpsych.com/?p=7The 9 Best Music Festivals You Didn’t Know About

With warm weather come hundreds of music festivals around the world. But let’s be honest, many of us only know the few big names: Pitchfork, Governors Ball, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza.

Unfortunately, big names mean a real fight for tickets. And with tickets already sold out to these well known music festivals, it may feel like your live music dreams are dashed. But it turns out, there’s a slew of smaller and equally hypeworthy festivals on offer. So we present our list of the best music festivals you probably don’t know about—but should. Dotted all around the world, these nine festivals leave you with plenty of room to breathe with more intimate lineups than the big guys. From Japan to Chicago, nobody’s missing out on good music this summer.

By Mina Kang

Taico Club
June 1-2, Nagano, Japan
Join 7,000 music lovers in the lush mountains of Nagano for performances ranging from indie to electronica by XXYYXX, Of Montreal, Richard Villalobos, and Machinedrum. Past lineups have seen Animal Collective and Africa Hitech.

INmusicJune 24-26, Zagreb, Croatia
This 25,000-person event lets you dance freely without bumping into other concert-goers and with the gorgeous backdrop of Zagreb’s Lake Jarun and forest landscape. This year’s lineup is impressive with Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, and NOFX on the list.

Beacons
August 16-18, Skipton, UKThis extravaganza offers two days of rock and electronic music to a group of just a few thousand music buffs. This year, enjoy the sounds of artists like Local Natives, Bonobo, and Solange along with breathtaking views of The Yorkshire Dales.

Treasure Island Music Festival
October 19-20, San Francisco, CAThe two-day affair is centered on electronica and hip hop on day one and day two highlighting rock and indie rock. The 2013 lineup is yet to be announced, but last year’s bill starring The XX, Best Coast, Girl Talk, and Toro Y Moi is plenty to keep us in high hopes.

Hangout Music FestivalMay 17-19, Gulf Shores, ALChill on the beach while taking in the sounds of this Alabama summer fest. This year, the event bringsKings of Leon, Stevie Wonder, The Shins, Ellie Goulding, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis,Kendrick Lamar, and more.

The Capitol Hill Block PartyJuly 26-28, Seattle, WAGet your fill of the best up-and-coming music at this three-day occasion in Seattle’s hip and bustling Capitol Hill. This year’s headliners offer a treat from their individual genres: Girl Talk, Seattle’s ownPickwick, and The Flaming Lips.

AfroPunkAugust 24-25, Brooklyn, NYOne of the most energetic weekends in Brooklyn, AfroPunk focuses on the afro-indie rock and punk scene and throws back to the early days of hip-hop. While the 2013 lineup is not yet announced, past performers include the likes of Das Racist, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, and Alice Smith. Bonus: tickets are free, and first come first served.

Sasquatch!May 24-27, Quincy, WAThis four-day spectacular, which is set on a gorgeous landscape with a view of the waters, indulges enthusiasts of indie rock, hip-hop, and alternative alike. This year’s acts include Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, The Postal Service, The XX, Steve Oaki, Earl Sweatshirt, Indians, and more.

North CoastAugust 30-September 1, Chicago, ILOnly on its fourth year, North Coast has brought a stellar fleet of bands each year to the Windy City. Last year’s crowds enjoyed the chill atmosphere, amazing food and clothing vendors, and raging performances by Pretty Lights, Girl Talk, Avi Sic, and Savoy.